WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance carried out a static-fire test of its Vulcan Centaur rocket June 7, one in every of the ultimate milestones before the vehicle’s first launch.
A Vulcan rocket fired its two BE-4 engines in a static-fire test called the Flight Readiness Firing (FRF) at 9:05 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 41. The engines fired for several seconds before shutting down.
The test appeared to go as planned. “Nominal run,” Tory Bruno, president and chief executive of ULA, tweeted moments after the test.
“It is a huge milestone. That is as close as you possibly can come to launching a rocket without actually launching the rocket,” Mark Peller, vice chairman of Vulcan development at ULA, said on an organization webcast shortly after the test.
The test exercised all of the vehicle and ground systems up through ignition of the engines, stopping just before releasing the rocket. “It’s our last major milestone on the trail to launch,” he said. “So, an enormous accomplishment.”
ULA planned to perform the FRF May 25. Nonetheless, the corporate called off the test several hours upfront after detecting a “delayed response” within the ignition system for the booster’s engines. ULA rolled the vehicle back to the Vertical Integration Facility to correct the issue, although the corporate didn’t disclose further details.
In February, Bruno said the FRF could be the ultimate major test milestone before the launch of the rocket on its inaugural flight, called Cert-1. After the test, the rocket will likely be rolled back to the VIF for final preparations, including integration of its payload, before returning to the pad for launch.
Nonetheless, there was an incident in late March during testing of a Centaur upper stage at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Hydrogen leaked from the structural test article and ignited, making a fireball.
Bruno said in a May 16 interview that the corporate was still investigating the source of the leak and what corrective actions, if any, were needed to repair it. If ULA determines no changes are needed to the upper stage, the Cert-1 launch could happen later in the summertime. That will slip to later within the 12 months if ULA decides it must make modifications to the Centaur.
An extra factor is that the first payload for the Cert-1 launch, the Peregrine lunar lander by Astrobotic, had launch windows open for about 4 to 5 days a month. ULA may also must work around other Atlas launches on the pad, although one potential conflict, the primary crewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, has slipped from late July due to spacecraft issues.
Other payloads on Cert-1 are the primary two demonstration satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband constellation, in addition to a payload for space memorial company Celestis.
